Artist with multiple personalities shows works in Pompano exhibit

As a woman living with dissociative identity disorder, Kim Noble shares her body with 14 personalities who call themselves artists. Seven paintings by seven of Noble's alter-egos are on display during "Beautifully Broken" at Bailey Contemporary Arts in Pompano Beach. (Phillip Valys / Courtesy)

Artist Kim Noble doesn’t remember her child abuse, psychiatric hospitalization or the birth of her daughter Aimee. But her multiple personalities do.

The 58-year-old London artist has dissociative identity disorder and is, in essence, many different people – she can’t guess the exact number – wrapped up inside one body. Yes, Kim Noble is the name on her birth certificate, but she is a mosaic of fully-formed identities, all living independently of one another.

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Noble isn’t even a painter – but 14 of her personalities are. Seven artworks from her alter egos “Patricia,” along with “Ria Pratt,” “Abi,” “Key,” “Judy” “No Name” and “Anon,” are featured in the new mental health-focused exhibit “Beautifully Broken,” opening July 5 at Bailey Contemporary Arts in Pompano Beach.

Artist Katya Neptune, the curator of “Beautifully Broken,” says her personal struggles with bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts prompted her to research similar artists with mental-health issues. Also on display are works by Neptune, Gregory Dirr, Daniel Garcia, Keith Welsh, Tim Bliss and Adam Dolle, plus five images from Mariangela Abeo’s “Faces of Fortitude” series of black-and-white portraits of suicide survivors.

“If these artists struggle with mental health, then what braver thing to do than to plaster it all over a gallery’s walls?” Neptune says. “Kim’s courage and resiliency makes my own mental problems feel smaller because if she can handle it, that gives me hope.”

The personality who answers the phone during a recent interview is named “Patricia,” by far Noble’s most dominant personality. “I’m actually Patricia, but I accept that the body is named Kim,” she says. “Legally, I know that is our name.”

All seven of her works in Pompano Beach represent a clash of styles. There is Ria Pratt’s “Round the Corner,” a disturbing portrait of childhood abuse, depicting three brightly colored figures hanging from a noose, above an inscription scrawled backwards in white: “Please Help Me.” There also is Key’s “Golden Kaballa.” a wooden carving covered in gold-leaf Hebrew characters. And there is Anon’s “We Will Follow,” spiritual portraits made with thick gobs of white paint, depicting a mother swaddling her newborn in cloth.

Patricia has never met Ria, Key or Anon, and doesn’t speak Hebrew. But she regards these paintings with reverence and almost an undercurrent of jealousy, the way a museum patron might love a Van Gogh or Picasso.

“I don’t remember painting them. I don’t remember any of their activities. But I realize it’s all coming from the same body,” Patricia says. “I actually think my paintings are quite boring compared to everyone else’s. I go up into my art room hoping that someone else might take over and paint. I like Anon’s texture, the way she lays on the thick paintwork. Some of the artists don’t like signing their work. They just want to get on and paint.”

Patricia considers painting a creative outlet and a way to understand what her personalities endured. Noble was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder in 1995, as she recounts in interviews with Vice, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and in her 2012 autobiography, “All of Me.” Piecing together her life’s memories with help from therapists, Patricia says her identity started fragmenting in childhood, not long after she was abused as an infant. She attempted suicide in her teens, which led to a stint in a psychiatric hospital. It was a personality named “Dawn” who gave birth to Noble’s daughter Aimee, now 21, although she suspects “Anon” (she doesn’t know her name) remembers Aimee’s infancy.

“Why else would she paint infant children?” Patricia asks. “Ria remembers the abuse my body endured in childhood, and I accept this is something she’s been through, but I can’t definitively say because I’m not her. I don’t feel, ‘Oh God, this is me.’ It feels like moving into a new house after something traumatic happened there.”

“Beautifully Broken” will open this Friday, July 5, with a 7-10 p.m. reception at Bailey Contemporary Arts, 41 NE First St., in Pompano Beach. Admission is free, and the exhibit will close Aug. 30. Call 954- 284-0141 or go to ArtHeart.gallery.

This collage of artworks from German-based artist Tim Bliss are part of "Beautifully Broken," a mental health-focused art show opening July 5 in Pompano Beach. (Phillip Valys / Courtesy)